Today is the day Chennai meets art. Public areas like the Chennai MRTS stations, parks host the Chennai Photo Biennale (on till March 13). “One of the core concepts of the festival is public engagement. We will be showcasing the exhibitions at the Lighthouse MRTS station, Nageshwara Rao Park and the outdoors of Lalit Kala Akademi, apart from several galleries across the city,“ says Varun Gupta, director of the festival. “We wanted to expand the scope of the festival and with that we decided to put together this photo festival. So, our main projects are the Urban Water by Photo Concierge, Surrealistic by Nature and Delhi Photo Festival. This apart, there will be shows at several partner galleries. We will also have artist talks, where the audience will get to hear from the photographers about their life as an artist, a person and a creative individual, and so on. So, we are trying to create an international photography scene in Chennai.“

Why a topic like Urban Water by Photo Concierge (this will be exhibited at the Lighthouse MRTS station)?Varun says, “The topic was chosen even before the flood. The director of Goethe-Institut Chennai, Helmut Schippert, has been working on the topic in different formats and when this idea of photography festival came up, he wanted to put together an exhibition around with photographs from Chennai.“ Adds Gayatri Nair, the festival manager, “Water was always on the cards. It's just that when the flood happened, it generated a lot more interest. It seemed like a good time for us to do a project on water issues in Chennai because that was a time when the entire city woke up to issues of water management, poor infrastructure, planning, and more.“ For this project, they invited 15 photographers from India, four of whom were elected by open call and other
11 were called on invitation. One among them, Kannagi Khanna, says that Chennai has seen a large growth of industries in and around the city over the years and they are one of the major causes of pollution. “So, I decided to portray my thoughts on the issue through a key water quality parameter ­ `Ph lev
els',“ says Kannagi.

The other big exhibition is Surrealistic by Nature. “It is a glimpse of the mythical attitudes of people playing with a culture that is at ease with its traditions and hence can be self-mocking,“ explains its curator, Yannick Cormier. The highlight of the exhibition is that it will held at the Nageshwara Rao Park and is open to anyone who walks in.“Taking art to public spaces is the perfect way to bridge the gap between those who consume it, and the general population. When you showcase your work at a gallery , your audience is limited as only certain kind of people will come to view it. Taking it to public spaces such as parks, beaches and stations means exposing the works across social strata, age groups and backgrounds,“ states Yannick.

A selection of works from the Delhi Photo Festival will also be showcased at the Lalit Kala Akademi in the city . It will feature works of legendary Indian photographers like Kishor Parekh and Raghu Rai, apart from other emerging international talents such as Sarker Protick (Bangladesh) and Olivier Culman (France).“Many exhibitions at the Delhi Photo Festival are designed to be displayed outdoors, and are site specific. So, we have tried to adapt them to the given space,“ says Prashant Panjiar, curator of this exhibition.